Jewish Literature

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

From Alejandro Jodorowsky—the legendary director of The Holy Mountain, spiritual guru behind Psychomagic and The Way of Tarot, and author of Where the Bird Sings Best—comes another autobiographical tour-de-force: a mythopoetic portrait of the artist as a young man in Chile in the tumultuous 1930s.

By David Albahari

Translated from the Serbian by Ellen Elias-Bursac

From the award-winning Serbian author David Albahari comes a devastating and Kafkaesque war fable about an army unit sent to guard a military checkpoint with no idea where they are or who the enemy might be.

Translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam

“No one alive today, anywhere, has been able to demonstrate the sheer possibilities of artistic invention—and in so many disciplines—as powerfully as Alejandro Jodorowsky.… His new semi-autobiographical novel Where the Bird Sings Best is his magnum opus, a fantastical something that in many ways mirrors the author himself: It is brilliant, mad, unpredictable.”

—NPR, Best Books of 2015

"One of the most inspiring artists of our time.... A prophet of creativity."

by György Spiró

Translated from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson

“Captivity is a complex and fast-paced tale of Jewish life in the early first century, a sort of sword-and-sandals saga as reimagined by Henry Roth. The narrative follows Uri from Rome to Jerusalem and back, from prospectless dreamer to political operative to pogrom survivor—who along the way also happens to dine with Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate and get thrown into a cell with a certain Galilean rabble-rouser. Hungarian György Spiró’s deft combination of philosophical inquiry and page-turning brio should overcome that oft-mentioned American timidity toward books in translation.”

by Yoram Kaniuk

Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav

The final literary testament of “one of Israel’s greatest and least celebrated writers” (Nicole Krauss), Between Life and Death is a startlingly brave, funny, poetic, and moving autobiographical novel about the four months Yoram Kaniuk spent in a coma near the end of his life.

by Jalal Al-e Ahmad

Translated from the Persian and with an essay by Samuel Thrope

Correspondence with Simin Daneshvar

Introduction by Bernard Avishai

The Israeli Republic “suggests how the Iranian and Israeli leaders who feel such intense mutual hostility today actually mirror one another in certain ways, particularly in their foundational attitudes toward religious authority, political and economic populism and the West. That a writer such as Al-e Ahmad, guru to the ayatollahs, liked Israel now seems touching. What he liked about Israel seems cautionary."

by Nurit Zarchi

Illustrations by Rutu Modan

Translated from the Hebrew by Tal Goldfajn

In a gorgeously retro illustrated reimagining of “The Little Mermaid,” Israeli author Nurit Zarchi and illustrator Rutu Modan bring us the poignant story of a worrywart named Whatwilltheysay, whose life is turned upside down by the spunky mermaid who shows up in his bathtub one day.